Abrams: Star Trek Split Timeline
1 min readFor fans of the original series and beyond, according to J.J. Abrams, don’t worry, because it’s all good and the adventures they love are still valid.
When Star Trek XI was created, the timeline alterations were meant to free Star Trek writers from the shackles of years of Star Trek canon stretching from the original series through Star Trek: Enterprise, so that writers could create new and fresh adventures.
But some of the changes were upsetting to established fans, and Abrams comprehends those emotions. “The notion that when this one character, Nero, arrives in his ship, that basically the timeline is altered at that moment, so everything forward is essentially an alternative timeline,” he said. “That is not to say that everything that happened in The Original Series doesn’t exist. I think, as a fan of movies and shows, if someone told me the beloved thing for me was gone, I would be upset.
“But we didn’t do that. We’re not saying that what happened in that original series wasn’t good, true, valid, righteous and real. Let people embrace that. We’re not rejecting that. That, to me, would have been the big mistake. We’re simply saying that, ‘At this moment, the very first scene in the first movie, everything that people knew of Star Trek splits off into now another timeline.”
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While I can appreciate the film as being a good film; a flick that in my opinion held together well and moved briskly (something which traditional Trek movies can be guilty of – slowing down). I also believe that JJ Abrams has done serious damage to Trek for us loyalists with the look and feel of his movie (at time with appearences that left me with the impression of it being a video game) and us Trek loyalists should heed what my local film critic (Dallas) had to say about the film at the time it came out namely “…people new to Trek will like the film and Trek loyalists should consider skipping it entirely…” If anything I accept what’s come to be called the “alternate universe” as a result of what was actually the topic of a Next Gen episode – namely that through alternate universes every action and every possible outcome is played out. Different decisions over time way back when were made branching realities off, different decisions about vessel design for example were made in each as to why in the “prime reality” the vessels look clean and office like but in the “alternate reality” they almost look like a brewery. It’s the only way I can rationalize the two Treks, otherwise the new Trek is a travesty.
My answer to this is simple. Build a copy of the ship that the Spocks flew in the movie, go back in time to a point before Nero appeared. Use the red graviton liquid to collapse the star that will go nova, years or decades before it was to happen in the original timeline. No this will not restore the timeline to its original state, but it would still be close enough to have all of the original stories and movies be the correct outcome again. Maybe this could be an idea for a book that someone could write.
They did the altered timeline thing because they didn’t want the film to become a cheap remake of something that fans care a great deal about. And for that, I salute and commend jJ.J. Abrams and the writers for such ingenuity. If they hadn’t used that subplot device, the film would have bombed big time due to fans backlashing it. Star Trek fans do have a way of holding the power of the franchise’s destiny and future. The franchise fatigue before 2009 is a clear example of that.
If you think you can do a better job, why don’t you write to Paramount and offer some suggestions?